Allan Pickman
Allan Pickman was the sixth Council Premier of Daravia. He was famed as a manipulator, exploiting the crown and the aristocracy to empower the parliament. Early life Allan Pickman was born in Avor, a region in Daravian-controlled Ricci, in 225 DR. His father was a toll collector who regulated travel to and from the province of Sunica, and Allan was intended to follow in this profession. Accordingly, Allan had some literacy from an early age, as his job would need him to read permits and instructions. Reading fascinated Allan, and after entering the workforce in 241, he began saving his money to travel to Castleton and peruse the royal library. The opportunity ultimately came in 247; after fighting with a belligerent traveler, Allan's leg was broken and he was forced to leave the business of toll collection. Allan purchased a horse and made the journey to Castleton, where he came to live permanently. Allan arrived in Castleton during the summer, during the height of election season; he was immediately enchanted by the political fervor, and used most of his remaining money to purchase a small house and become eligible to vote. From there, Allan sought to become involved in Castleton politics wherever possible, culminating in a 252 run for the Council. Parliamentary career After achieving victory as a representative of Capria, Allan shortly found himself skeptical of then-Premier Edmund Milgrain. Edmund was a close personal friend to Queen Laurel III, and Allan held a vision of increasing the separation of feudal and parliamentary power structures; in particular, Allan noted Edmund's periodic blackmailing of especially troublesome nobles, and felt that the parliament's espionage apparatus could be used more thoroughly. Despite these qualms, Allan found himself largely agreeing with Edmund on policy matters, and in fact supported Edmund's reelection in 257. However, Edmund's agenda began to unravel somewhat in the following term, as his crown connections broke down and he ceded the salt commission; the more conservative factions in the parliament thus began to see their defeat of Edmund as an inevitability in 262. Allan, however, started a campaign of his own, by which he promised to provide a stronger and more ideologically pure version of Edmund's agenda. As the 262 election drew near, Allan's most prominent opponent came to be Benedict Shavedine. Edmund himself was still running, but many of his supporters had fled him in Allan's favor; Benedict was thus poised to secure a majority of the votes. However, Benedict grew complacent, and over-prioritized attacking Allan for his Riccian birth, causing the parliament to be unimpressed by him. The election ultimately went to Allan. Premiership Almost immediately after his inauguration, Allan called for the Iurnilis Nobiliani ''and began thoroughly reading it. He also began a program of stripping local legislative power from the aristocracy, and instead granting it to parliamentarians; this met with outcry from the nobles, but Allan responded by using the ''Iurnilis data frequently and aggressively. This strategy obtained Allan several early victories, and for this reason he managed to secure greater funding for the espionage program. During Allan's first term, the crown was largely ineffective— King Victor I was an adolescent, away at school, and the regent Anders Orendras was little interested in rulership. Thus, although Allan became a significant enemy of the feudal aristocracy, they had little recourse to stop him. Allan was still well-liked by the parliament, though, and was easily reelected in 267. By this point, Victor's majority was drawing near, and Allan needed to curry favor with him to be able to maintain his power. He met with Victor on several occasions, and learned of Victor's resentment of his father and of the Rubinai; Allan opted to encourage Victor to further pursue the Rubinai colonial program, and offered to shoulder more of the duties of ruling the home front. Victor thus ceded several of his powers to the parliament, powers which Allan distributed in turn to reward his particular supporters. Although Allan was quick to condemn Dorian king Benedict II's Azkaviel proclamation, he was reticent to pair it with concrete sanctions; however, his stance was an unpopular one, and so Allan recognized that he would need to convince Victor to impose sanctions on Dorio if he wanted to remain in power. With the 272 elections coming up, Allan promised to secure sanctions after reelection, and thereby undercut the campaign of his rival Vincent Gardona— Victor himself was in Rubinau during the election season, allowing Allan to postpone the fulfillment of this promise. In 273, safely reelected, Allan followed through with his campaign assurance and worked out a set of Dorian sanctions with Victor. However, the loss of Dorian trade that occurred caused a sudden drop in revenue for Daravia as well; Allan had never had a strong economic mind, and so he struggled to bring Daravia back to its former financial strength. He did, however, sense the growing resentment to his tenure, and began turning his spy network inward. It soon became clear that Woodrow Carrowforge was planning a rival campaign; Allan instead opted to appoint Woodrow to an economic position in his cabinet, deflating Woodrow's campaign and allowing Allan to win a fourth term. Early in Allan's fourth term, the breakout of the Rubo-Daravian War came to occupy the attention of much of Daravia's nobility. This gave Allan a wide berth to control the country as he desired, and he faced a relatively peaceful final term. As his tenure drew to a close, he supported Arthur Silver as his successor, but in the 282 election Arthur was defeated by Vincent Gardona. Personal and later life Allan met Violet Wood soon after his arrival in Castleton; the two quickly became close, and were married in 250. They had one son, but the birth was difficult, and no more children followed. Allan and Violet raised their son, Baldwin, to follow Allan in politics; Baldwin had a brief parliamentary career but was not a very successful politician. After Allan's retirement, he and Violet remained in Castleton, although after Violet's death in 285, Allan moved back to a manor in Avor. He lived out his days there until dying of pneumonia in 291. Category:Daravians Category:Elected Officials Category:Parliament Heads